


Start with “I’m Sorry”

by greenstuff



Series: I know not everything is possible [2]
Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-11
Updated: 2016-06-11
Packaged: 2018-07-14 11:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenstuff/pseuds/greenstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apologize, make amends, reach out to those who you pushed away. It all sounded so simple at the meeting. But now, sitting in a dank little internet cafe with a cup of weak coffee and the oppressive blank space in front of him, Adam doesn't know how. It sounded so simple, but it's terrifying. Just reach out. Offer an olive branch. After that... well, after that, he'll know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Start with “I’m Sorry”

 

_Tony,_

|

Adam stares at the flashing cursor in the blank body of the email trying and failing to come up with the words . Apologize, make amends, reach out to those who you pushed away. It all sounded so simple at the meeting. But now, sitting in a dank little internet cafe with a cup of weak coffee and the oppressive blank space in front of him, Adam doesn't know how. It sounded so simple, but it's terrifying. Just reach out. Offer an olive branch. After that... well, after that, he'll know. 

Tony isn't cruel. If he responds, even in anger, then that means there is a chance, infinitesimal though it may be, that he can make his amends. But if Tony doesn't respond, if he's changed his email address, if he's blocked Adam, or if he just blanks him completely, then Adam doesn't know what the next step is. Probably at that point he should walk away, let Tony have his space, his peace, his life, but he doesn't know if he can do that.

There are others, of course, who Adam needs to make amends to, but he would be lying if he said he was worried about how any of them would accept his overtures. He wants to make up for Paris, for every shitty selfish dickhead thing he has done, but if they don't forgive him, he understands and he can move on. The close knit culinary family he once had will be impossible to replace, but Adam will live with regret his entire life, and it seems somehow fitting to him that he never regain that easy, close camaraderie.

Suzette would have called him out for self-flagellation, but she isn't here, no one is. Well, there is the old guy behind the counter watching a telanovella with the sound on low, but Adam is fairly certain he doesn't care if his only customer is sitting there beating himself up over things he can't control or change as long as Adam pays the bill for the time he’s on the computer.

Adam considers phoning Suzette. For all he doesn't want to hear his sponsor's choice words about his attitude, Suzette is wise and always seems to know what to say. Surely she could give him words to tell Tony... but there his brain stalls out because Adam isn't even sure what it is he needs to tell Tony. "I'm sorry" is so wholly inadequate. "I want to make it up to you" sounds so trite. "I'm getting better and I need you to be in that process because none of this makes any sense without you," would be cruel and selfish and he's trying not to be either of those things anymore. "I don't deserve it, but please forgive me anyway because I think I've been in love with you forever," is ridiculous, and even if Adam could bring himself to admit it, Tony would just think Adam is making fun of him.

With a frustrated sigh Adam closes the window. He snorts aloud when it asks if he would like to save his draft.

He calls Suzette on his walk home.

"What's up Adam?"

"I tried to email Tony."

"Tried?" She sounds singularly unimpressed.

"I don't know what to say to him." Adam feels like a chastened school boy.

"Meet me at HARO in half an hour, yeah? You can buy me chocolate and we'll talk."

Adam smiles at that. Suzette hasn't touched heroin in seven years, but she told Adam when they first met that the secret to staying sober is to allow herself a different, less destructive, addiction: chocolate. HARO was her favourite place to meet Adam. The cafe was conveniently located near enough both of their workplaces that they could walk to it and  offered a selection of handmade chocolates that she like to claim sustained her.

Adam was already seated at one of the small metal tables with two cups of coffee and a plate of assorted chocolates when Suzette bustled in. Her greying blonde hair was pulled back into a neat French braid and her buxom figure was nearly buttoned into a navy blazer over a pair of dark jeans and a bright blue blouse. She set her lime green clutch on the table and collapsed into the seat across from Adam with a breathless, "Sorry, sorry, I know I'm late, the place is madness today. A drop-in list as long as my arm and Kim was late, as ALWAYS." She let out a long breath and gestures with her hands as if shooing away the negative energy. "But this isn't about me."

Adam can see the shifting roles play out on her face. One minute he is facing Suzette, manager of a local custom lingerie fitting boutique who never seems to sit still, always running here and there trying to keep everything running, and then her shoulders relax, her pink tipped fingers curl around the coffee cup and she transforms into Suzette, the recovering addict who will sit with you all night to make sure you don't slip up, who has wisdom to spare and cares about Adam like a protective big sister.  

"What is it you're afraid of?"

Adam represses the urge to shrug off the question with an accurate but ultimately futile 'I don't know.' He takes a sip of coffee to buy his mind time to mull over the question. "Rejection, I guess." He says at last, but that wasn't quite right either.

Suzette raises one penciled-on eyebrow. "I don't think you believe that any more than I do."

"I don't want to hurt him."

"You already hurt him."

"I know."

"Are you afraid you'll hurt Tony, or are you afraid you will be hurt again?"

"Both?" Adam knows he sounds as confused as he feels. But it's not that simple a question. "I don't want to hurt Tony." That much he knows is true, but the rest... "But it's complicated."

"Because you're in love with him?"

Adam shrugs and fixes his eyes on the table top. "I don't deserve anything from Tony. I hurt him and then I disappeared. But now..." He looks up at her, feeling more vulnerable than he was since the very first NA meeting when he stood up and said 'My name is Adam, and I'm an addict.' "What if he doesn't care anymore?"

Suzette doesn’t respond to the question right away. This is both Adam’s favourite and least favourite thing about her. She doesn’t do platitudes, just endless patience and tough love. She bites into a cocoa powder coated truffle and closes her eyes in pleasure.

Adam sips his coffee and tries, almost successfully, not to fidget.

“You know what I’m going to say, don’t you?” She asks just as Adam thinks he can’t take waiting another second.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

She smiles. “See? You barely need me around anymore. Such wisdom for such a pretty face, it really isn’t fair.”

Adam rolls his eyes and snags a chocolate just to see her eyes narrow. He appreciates the levity, but the thought of reaching out to Tony, of placing himself in a position to hurt and be hurt is no less scary for a moment of shared laughter. “I don’t know what to say to him.”

“Start with ‘I’m sorry.’” Suzette’s eyes are warm with compassion as she holds his gaze. “Start there and you’ll be amazed at how the rest just pours out.”

“It just feels so…”

“Trite?”

“I was going to say inadequate, but yes, trite. I didn’t step on his toes in a crowd or accidentally jostle beer down his shirt, I…” _had my way with him and then ran away._ “I don’t know how he could ever forgive that.”

“Shouldn’t that be for him to decide?”

Adam let his head fall forward in defeat. She’s right. Of course she’s right. But that doesn’t make the advice easier to follow. A warm hand settles on Adam’s forearm and squeezes.

“Just tell him you’re sorry and mean it. That’s all you can do.”

\---

_Tony,_

_Please don’t just delete this._

_I am so sorry for so many things I sat in a dingy little cave of an internet café for two hours staring at a blank page because I didn’t even know where to start. I still don’t know where to start. But a good friend told me: ‘Just tell him you’re sorry and mean it. That’s all you can do.”  So, here it goes..._

_I’m sorry._

_I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry…_

_I don’t have an excuse for what I did to you. Well, that’s a lie (trying not to tell those anymore). I have about a thousand excuses, but they’re just that: excuses, sad little lies I tell myself at five in the morning when I can’t sleep because the regret is so heavy I can’t bear to close my eyes. I deserve those sleepless nights, but this isn’t about me. Not just me._

_I want to make amends, Tony. I don’t know if you can ever forgive me, but if you’ll let me try, I want to make it up to you. Any way I can._

_I’m in Louisiana. I’ve been stone sober for nine months. Celibate for three years_

 

Adam stops, sighs and erases the last sentence. Somehow mentioning that he’s not fucking anyone, but he has fucked people since _that night_ seems like something Tony should know but not something Adam should tell him, not yet, maybe not ever. It’s something Adam wants forgiveness for, but he’s trying valiantly not to be selfish, and trying to have Tony back as anything but a friend feels selfish. Once, perhaps. If he’d given up the drugs, if he hadn’t run, if he’d let Tony help him. Perhaps back then, in Paris, perhaps there had been a chance. But Adam has missed that window by a mile, and he’s trying to resign himself to the fact that the chance will never come around again.

 

_I’m in Louisiana. I’ve been stone sober for nine months. I talk to my sponsor every week, attend meetings, and never miss a day of work. It’s a life. But it’s not the life I want. Not if there’s any chance of a better one. Of one with you in it, if that’s not too forward.  I miss you, my friend._

_I understand if I’ve missed my chance, if it’s too much for you to forgive. Believe me. I understand that. I deserve no less. But I hope…_

_I hope._

_And I’m sorry._

_Yours,_

_Adam_

 

It takes almost as long to press send as it did to write. Somewhere behind him the proprietor, whose TV is switched to soccer now, lets out a triumphant shout, the only sign of life in the otherwise empty cave of space. When he presses send it feels like stepping off a cliff in the dark. Only time will tell whether it’s cool deep water or jagged rocks below.

 

\---

It’s been a year since Tony moved back to London and life has fallen into a routine. Each morning he gets up at six, prepares a cup of instant coffee – in hot milk with just a hint of sugar – and checks his email. It’s not a particularly exciting routine, but it’s his. In the three years since Jean Luc’s restaurant failed, routine has become important to Tony: routine, control, the things that keep his world turning exactly on its proper axis. Tony has no interest in having his world shifted, never again. Once had nearly destroyed him.

Tony opens the unread email in his inbox without really paying attention to the subject or the sender.

_Tony,_

_Please don’t just delete this_

_I am so sorry for so many things I sat in a dingy little cave of an internet café for two hours staring at a blank page because I didn’t even know where to start…._

Tony freezes, anger washing his vision white. Anger so sharp and visceral it's like he's just been pushed into the North Sea in the dead of February and is pulling himself out, shaking, angry, but so very awake. "You're fucking joking." He closes the window without bothering to read the entire email, but he doesn't delete it.

And it lingers.

All day, no matter what he's doing, Tony can't shake a smoky spectre of Adam saying "Tony, please don't just delete this..."

It takes a week, but when he finally hits reply it feels inevitable, like he could never have done anything else. Fuck. Maybe it is inevitable. Maybe the fucking string tying Tony's heart directly to Adam, the only only Adam can tug and Tony cannot ignore, is always going to be there and nothing will break it except death. The thought is depressing for as long as it takes Tony to remember that Adam isn't dead, that he isn't wasting away in a gutter, and then relief and anger commingle in his chest until it hurts to breathe and he slams the laptop shut and storms away.

 _Fuck Adam Jones_. Tony is done!

_Only..._

The email follows him around all day and hours later, after a long day of trying and nearly failing to keep the Langham running, Tony is back in front of the computer. For a long time he just sits. He curls his fingers around a mug that's mostly filled with brandy, though there's enough tea to give him a veneer of anything but the truth (that he can't do this sober), and he finally reads the entire email from beginning to end. And then he reads it again, and again. And he still doesn’t know what to think but somehow his fingers move almost against his will.

_Adam,_

_You’re alive then? That’s a surprise._

_Can’t say it’s entirely a bad one. I’m glad you’ve turned your life around. It sounds like you have something good going for you in Louisiana. You should focus on that._

_Raising old ghosts won’t help anyone._

_\- Tony._

He hits send before he can think better of it and then collapses into bed. The room is spinning a little from the brandy. He knows in the morning he will regret all of it, the email, the drink, all of it. But for now he leans into the tipsy, light feeling of alcohol until he falls into sleep.

 

**\---**

 

“It’s one in the morning, Adam.” Suzette’s voice is gravely with sleep.

“He wrote back.”

Suzette sighs. “Your love life is going to be the death of me.”

Adam can hear the smile in her voice. “You love it.”

“Do you have chocolate?”

“Always.”

“Ugh. Give me half an hour. Have the chocolate out, yeah? And coffee.”

“I owe you one, Suze.”

“Nah, you’re a good egg, Adam. I’ll do this one for chocolate.”

 Adam kills the time it takes Suzette to reach his apartment by grinding espresso beans and plating up the last of the truffles he made for the last time he needed a favour from his chocoholic sponsor. He manages not to think about Tony or London at all until Suzette is settled at his small kitchen table with a mug of caffeine cuddled against her chest.

“Spill.” She orders, popping a truffle in her mouth.

Adam doesn’t sit, he can’t seem to stay still. Instead starts mixing batter for a cake. Keeping his hands busy he’s able to talk freely. He tells Suzette what Tony’s email says, though not his exact words or the way they sounded in his head as if Tony were right in the room. “He’s angry.”

“And that’s a good thing?”

Adam doesn’t realize he’s smiling until she asks that and it brings Adam up short for a moment. “Yeah,” he says, grinning like an idiot into the bowl of batter in his hands. “It’s a good thing.”  

“So what’s next?”

“I’m going to London.”

Suzette coughs on a mouthful of coffee that went down the wrong way. “I’m sorry, you’re _going_ to _London_?”

Adam splits the batter into two cake tins, giving them both a moment to let his declaration sink in. He didn’t make up his mind until the words were leaving his mouth, but now that they’re out he feels calm. He’s going to London. Tomorrow, if he can get a flight. It’s probably insane, but he needs to do this. And he needs to do it before he loses his nerve and lets another year, or three pass him by.

“Even though he specifically told you not to?”

Suzette’s question makes him pause for one moment, but he shakes it off as he bends to slide the cakes into the oven. “If I don’t go now then it’s over, and I’m not ready for that yet.”

“You want to know what I think?”

 _Not really_. “Sure.” Adam leans against the counter, the sharp corners of the counter top digging into his palms.

“This sounds like old Adam.”

Adam tightens his grip on the counter, the slight sting grounding him. He was right, he really didn’t want to know what she thought. But he knows he’s not ‘old Adam’ because he manages to suck in a deep breath and say nothing at all.

“I love you to pieces, you know that, and you’ve come so far from that twitchy, buggy eyed disaster I met two years ago in a dingy church basement, but you know the drill. Addicts don’t get cured, we just learn to recognize those situations that are dangerous and to walk away.”  She just _looks_ at him.

He can hear the hum of the refrigerator, the distant honking of a horn, the distant thrum of bass from a nearby club. Neither of them speaks. She’s right. That’s the worst bit. He wants to run to London, insert himself in Tony’s space until he’s forgiven. Because he knows that if he pushes hard enough, inserts himself far enough, Tony won’t be able to say no. It’s selfish. It’s exactly what he promised himself, and told Tony, that he wouldn’t be anymore.

“You’ve opened the door,” Suzette breaks the silence in her softest voice. “Use that.”

Adam sighs. He wants… he just _wants_. But she’s right. It’s not just about him. “Send him an email you mean.”

“For now.”

“I hate you a little bit.”

“I can take it.”

“What kind of frosting do you want on your cake?”

“Do you have to ask?”

Adam laughs and pulls out a bag of chocolate chunks. He’s not jetting off to London to fix his life in one fell swoop, but he has something right now that has been in short supply the last few months: hope.

When Suzette leaves, with cake tin in hand and a kiss on Adam’s cheek, he walks to the internet café. Maybe he should wait, but the simple act of not flying off to London has taken all the restraint he has, so he’s settled in front of an ancient monitor before the sun has even begun to approach the horizon.

He keeps the email light, tells Tony about shucking so many oysters he dreams about oyster shucking almost every night. He writes a dozen questions but only sends one: “how’s London?” It’s such a loaded question. In it he means How are you? Are you the same Tony I knew? Do you miss me? Is it okay that I miss you? What is your life like? Are you happy? Are you in love with someone else? Could you ever love me? Can I see you?  Do you ever think about that night?  But he can’t ask any of that, so he writes “How’s London?” and hopes Tony will give him something, anything, in return.

 

\----

 

For two months after he almost flew to London, Adam feels a lot like he’s banging his head against a brick wall. He emails Tony whenever he feels like it, which ends up being almost every day. Every email asks how Tony is and shares a tiny bit of Adam’s New Orleans life. He’s sent six emails when he finally received a reply:

 

_Adam,_

_I don’t know what you want from me.  But it’s clear you aren’t just going to go away. So, to answer your question: London is wet. I am well enough._

_Regards,_

_Tony_

 

It’s not exactly an invitation to keep writing, but Adam does anyway. Because despite the frustrated, closed off Tony that radiates from the response, the reply tells Adam one important thing: Tony is reading his emails. Even if he isn’t replying, that’s more communication than they’ve had in years.

When he hits 250,000 oysters he sends Tony a ridiculous selfie of him and a pile of empty shells and a close up of the long gash one of those shells managed to leave in his flesh in retribution.  Tony responds with _Most people wear gloves to prevent that sort of thing but I suppose kitchen safety isn’t cool enough for Adam Fucking Jones_ , which puts a ridiculous smile on Adam’s face for an entire day. 

Adam resists the urge to get an internet connection for his home because he is fairly certain if he did he would spend most of his time sitting there in front of the computer hoping for a little ding that would tell him Tony had responded. Responses were few and far between, but each one was a little less formal, a little more _Tony_ than the one before and every time encouraged Adam to keep trying to share his life one anecdote at a time. Adam never really made friends in New Orleans, except for Suzette, and he’d almost forgotten what it was like to share your life, even just snapshots, with someone you… well, with someone who matters.

Eventually, Tony starts writing back for real. He tells Tony about the useless chef his dad loves but who Tony would fire in a heartbeat if he wasn’t convinced the entire stack of resumes always on the corner of his desk was 90% composed of chefs who would be even worse. He tells Adam Max is in jail and they exchange rapid fire one line emails for hours as Adam pumps him for the entire story. Those exchanges are Adam’s favourite. Usually happening in Tony’s morning and Adam’s late night. Sitting in front of the monitor, surrounded by stale air and the ambient noise of whatever the night manager is watching on the TV, Adam almost feels like they’re sitting together in a café along the Seine, like they’re friends spending time together instead of estranges former… something, separated by an entire ocean.

Over dozens of emails they build something new on the shattered foundation of their relationship. It’s more open than what they had before. Adam doesn’t share everything with Tony, but he shares more than he ever had in Paris. Yet, somehow, even when they’ve been exchanging emails for nearly a year and Adam’s penance is wrapping up, whatever this is between them feels fragile. Tony never suggests Adam come to London, and Adam knows Tony wouldn’t come to Louisiana, even if Adam could work up the nerve to ask him.

They don’t discuss Paris.

Tony never asks why or even acknowledges Adam’s apologies. Sometimes Adam will mention a memory from the days before everything started to spiral, but Tony never acknowledges it. It’s as if for Tony they know each other only in the now, the aftermath of Paris. Their history festers in the silence in between the words they send. Until one day, Adam’s phone rings.

“Jean Luc is dying.”

Adam can’t process the words at first over the maelstrom Tony’s voice sets off in his mind. For a moment all he can hear is that voice, breathless, almost whispering: _Tell me._ And then nothing but soft breaths and moans that sound almost like _Adam_ muffled against his skin. His entire body goes hot and then cold and then suddenly the words filter through the wave of sensation and he feels like someone is holding a plastic bag over his head. “Wh-what?”

“I’m sorry, Adam. He has cancer. Anne-Marie says maybe three weeks.”

“I—“ Adam is breathing in short, sharp pants. His vision clouds and he sinks to the ground not caring that he was walking home from work and that people walking on the sidewalk are giving him strange looks as they veer to avoid him.

“You should come soon, if you want to say goodbye, you should come as soon as possible.”

Adam isn’t sure if he says anything, not that there is anything to say. Jean Luc was his mentor, his friend, the man who taught him everything he knew about cooking, and the man whose life Adam’s actions had almost ruined. He loomed so large in Adam’s personal history that the thought of him being _gone_ , the thought of him ceasing to be, would not sink in. He thinks he says he’ll get the first flight out because then Tony is saying something about emailing him the hotel details and then there’s nothing on the line but the sound of Tony breathing.

Adam closes his eyes and focuses on the sound. He matches his breaths to Tony’s and the grey recedes from his mind and he feels less like he’s suffocating. “Thank you for calling.” He whispers, it’s as loud as he can manage around the lump in his throat.

“He wants to see you.” Tony pauses, sucks in an audible breath. “Send me your flight number. I’ll meet you at the airport, yes?”

“Thank you, Tony.”

“Fly safe.”

Adam sits on the sidewalk until both legs fall asleep, his phone clutched between his fingers. When he can finally move it’s mostly just to prop himself against a sapling until the pins and needles feeling is gone and he can walk. He texts Suzette that an old friend is dying and he’s flying to Paris on the next plane. He doesn’t wait for her response, barely takes the time to return home and throw some clothes and a toothbrush into a duffle before he’s calling a cab and heading to the airport.

He gets a ticket on a red-eye with a stopover in Atlanta that costs about two month’s wages and turns off his phone as soon as he’s sent Tony a text with the details. In fourteen hours he will be in Pairs, the city he never thought he would set foot in again.  In fourteen hours he will see Tony for the first time since he abandoned a naked, sleeping Tony four years ago. In fourteen hours he will be in Paris because Jean Luc is dying, and this is his last chance to say goodbye and thank you, and I’m sorry.


End file.
